Chapter 67 - Volume 3 (1/2)
Taking off the tea cosy from the teapot, I pour the black tea into the warmed teacups, ensuring it’s evenly thick. The fragrant scent softly wafts up, tickling my nose. ‘Yes! A good performance today too……’ Escaping reality with such thoughts, I set everyone’s teacups on their saucers before them.
「Here, please enjoy.」
「Thanks, I’ll dig in.」
Even though there’s no way he can’t have noticed my, Agedilus’s, or the Princess’s three objecting gazes, the young man ignores us. He pours a small amount of milk into the tea, elegantly bringing the cup to his mouth in a refined gesture. As he does, his amber eyes blink in surprise.
「I’m surprised. Filmina, was it? Looks like the tea leaves were good too, but you’ve got some skill there.」
「……Honored to hear that.」
Agedilus, who had supplied the tea leaves, indifferently answers in my place. I keep my silence, standing and focusing on serving them.
As per the young man’s request, we ended up treating ourselves to an elegant tea party without even calling a maidservant, in an arbor deep in the courtyard of the Black Lotus Court. Inevitably, I took on the role of serving, and so I poured out the tea like this, waiting beside them just like a maidservant.
Letting out a smile, the young man sips his tea like he’s in a good mood. Under normal circumstances I would have internally rejoiced at those words of praise, but right now I can’t do that. To put it frankly, the thought of openly rejoicing in front of this young man irritates me. Though I can never say that, since if I say it I could be accused of a crime against royals.
「Well, now that I’ve had a short rest, I suppose it’s time for an introduction? My name is Klanven. I’m the half-brother of His Majesty the King, and Clementine’s uncle. I have the privilege of serving our goddess as the priest of a large temple. If Clementine’s the same age as you guys, you must have heard my name at least once, haven’t you?」
With the teacup in one hand, the young man tilts his head to the side. I’m about to get captivated by that magnificent silver hair that lightly falls from his shoulder, but I suppress it. I and Agedilus exchange looks and then nod a second late.
The young man——His Highness, Prince Klanven. If you’re at least a certain age, you must have heard that name at least once, just like he said.
He is a child who was conceived because the princess’s father, His Majesty’s father, the previous king had an… This is a vulgar way to put it, but he had ‘sexual relations’ with a maidservant who was still young at the time. But it’s not like the previous king had an affair in this monogamous country. Her Highness the Queen, his wife, had died early. So Klanven is the result of the previous king’s love in his declining years.
By all rights, it wouldn’t have been strange if the previous king’s maidservant, Klanven’s mother, had become the new queen and stood beside the king based on Klanven’s existence. But it seemed she herself didn’t want that. No one but the physician that diagnosed her pregnancy knew she was pregnant, she didn’t even return to her middle class aristocrat family home. To avoid the public eye, she left to an unsafe town, secretly giving birth to His Highness Klanven.
Meantime, the previous king spent several years searching for that maidservant. Once he heard from the physician that she was pregnant, the search grew even more serious, continuing even after his death. But by the time they finally discovered her whereabouts, it was already too late. The woman who could have lived as queen if she so pleased, the top seat for women in this country, had already died, and only Klanven himself was left alone.
Once they found Klanven, he was summoned to a grand temple to avoid the problem of him possibly being the heir to the throne, where he grew up as a priest…… That’s the life story of His Highness Klanven that’s generally known to the public.
You might say ‘wouldn’t the previous king’s old age love be an unthinkable scandal?’ but the current king made Klanven’s existence public, deciding that it was better than to hide it and have it turn into an awkward problem in the future.
What boosted that is that the love story of His Highness the previous King and the girl who was a maidservant has now turned into plays and drama. Of course, the names are changed, but everyone who knows what happened can easily tell, 「Oh, it’s that story?」
And so, I got a bit off track there but anyway, Klanven hasn’t been involved at all in this society as the priest of a grand temple. I have absolutely no idea why he came to the royal palace——and to the Black Lotus Court on top of that.
Although I definitely don’t say it, my doubts must be obvious on my face. Klanven puts the teacup back on the saucer, very gently facing me and speaking.
「So you find it incomprehensible why I came all the way to the royal palace, hmm?」
I hesitate over whether it’s fine to reply in a familiar way to a person who’s royalty. I glance fleetingly at the princess and that man only to see their gazes certainly look like they’re saying 「It’s fine」. Supported by those gazes, I timidly open my mouth.
「With all due respect. As you say, why is Your Highness here in the Black Lotus Court?」
「Oh, that’s, well I just wanted to see what kind of a person the so-called wizard of pure-black is with my own two eyes, y’know? I slipped out of my room and just went for a walk here.」
「……Is that so.」
Is my husband really such a being that people can come to sightsee him whenever they feel like going on a picnic? That’s a great question in my mind. I glance at him to see him not even touching the tea, expressionless. His beauty is just like a doll who the best dollmaker in the world had made with complete concentration, devoting his heart and soul until they ran out of energy. But even though he boasts that beauty, I can tell that his mood has probably, no, definitely had a turn for the worse. He’s a man that hates being turned into a spectacle for display in the first place. There’s no way he’d be pleased if someone just directly told him 「I came to see you」 like this.
‘I’ll have to follow up on this later,’ thinking that, I looked at Klanven to see him finishing his tea with a smile. 「Might I ask for a second cup?」 He presents his teacup to me. Contrary to his appearance, he really is a shameless person. I silently tilt the teapot and pour the black tea for him. Klanven puts milk in it again, mixing it once with a spoon.
「But well, that was just something I thought I’d take the opportunity for while I’m here. The actual reason I especially left my temple and came here was for the grand festival.」
「By grand festival, you mean the one a month from now?」
「Right. Since I was chosen to be the organiser of the festival this time, you know? So that’s why I showed up here for the preparations.」
Klanven says it without hesitating, but his words are a pretty big announcement.